Portsmouth High School’s Jake Becker scores a 23-yard touchdown during the third quarter of the Division III football championship game against Goffstown in Portsmouth.

Changes on the horizon for local football teams

By Mike Zhe

mzhe@seacoastonline.com

November 25, 2012 - 2:00 AM

A memorable high school football on the Seacoast officially concluded Thursday morning, when Portsmouth beat Dover in their annual Thanksgiving Day game.

With three teams — Exeter, Winnacunnet and Portsmouth — winning state titles in New Hampshire, and Marshwood claiming its first Western Maine championship in 23 years, it was a season the likes of which we may not see again.

For more than one reason.

Classification realignment, something many who follow high school football in these parts feel is long overdue in both New Hampshire and Maine, has arrived at our doorstep.

In 2013, New Hampshire will place its 57 teams in three divisions, scrapping the six-division setup that's been in place since 2008 and was a target for critics who charged a state this small should not be crowning six state champions.

Maine is reportedly close to approving a plan that would spread out its 76 teams over four divisions, after crowning three state champions in the past.

And, while realignment was something that hung over this past season on both sides of the river, it's not something the players got too caught up in.

"We're not really focusing on next year," said Winnacunnet junior quarterback Ing Hao Veasna before a big game last month. "Our main goal is getting to the states and winning it. That should be everybody's priority."

But priorities tend to change in the offseason.

Let's start in New Hampshire, where the realignment is a done deal, at least for a year. Division I (20 teams), Division II (20 teams) and Division III (17 teams) will each be split into four "conferences," with the top two teams in each conference qualifying for the playoffs.

Exeter coach Bill Ball, who serves on the NHIAA's Football Committee, called forming the realignment plan a "daunting task," and one that rejected several other proposals before deciding on this one. Key factors were travel and maintaining existing rivalries.

In a 20-team Division I, that looks to be exactly the case. Winnacunnet and Exeter will be joined in a five-team "conference" by Timberlane, Spaulding and Dover. Each team will play the other teams in its conference — longest road trip: 45 minutes — and then five others in the division.

"You try to keep the local rivalries in effect," said Ball. "It's natural."

But that argument loses steam in the 20-team Division II, where two-time defending state champion Portsmouth will be grouped in an eclectic conference with four teams it has little or no history with — St. Thomas Aquinas, Pembroke, Kingswood and Merrimack Valley.

For the Portsmouth coaches, the competition level is a real concern, even though next year's Division II is where their enrollment places them. Two of their current league foes — Goffstown, the team it beat in last weekend's Division III championship, and Alvirne — are both elevating to the new Division I.

"I know we'll be talking about it in the preseason," said Portsmouth junior quarterback/safety Nate McFarland. "I mean, we've been thinking about it, but we don't know what's going to happen."

In Maine, the two local schools most likely to be affected by the MPA proposal pitched in the spring are York and Traip, which would each be nudged down a level if it's adopted.

Under that proposal, which has yet to be approved but could be soon, the largest of the three local, football-playing high schools — Marshwood — would remain in Class B, whose enrollment ceiling would be 849. Joining it in its region would be current foes Greely, Falmouth, Fryeburg and Westbrook; current Class A teams Kennebunk, and presumably either Biddeford or Sanford; and two new faces from the East — Camden Hills and Oceanside.

York, which reached the championship game in Western Maine Class B this fall — losing 21-20 to Marshwood — would drop to Class C (450-624) based on its enrollment. It would keep current rivals like Cape Elizabeth, Gray-New Gloucester and Spruce Mountain.

Traip coach Ron Ross, whose team dressed fewer than 20 players for some games this season — yet still went 8-2 and advanced to the Western Mine Class C semifinals — said Class D (449 and below) would be the right fit for his program, along with others of similar enrollment and maybe some programs new to the varsity level.

"There's ways they can do it right," said Ross. "If they don't, it could kill some programs."

At this point, there's anticipation and nervousness in both states.

"I'm anxious to see how it works out," said Ball. "It's still football."